Rialto >> In response to concerns raised over a Holocaust essay assignment that brought national media attention to Rialto Unified, a top district administrator said Tuesday that the district will add new processes and increase oversight of lesson planning when teachers meet this summer to plan next year’s curricula.

The district has been widely criticized over the assignment, which directed students to “read and discuss multiple, credible articles on this issue, and write an argumentative essay, based on cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe (the Holocaust) was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.”

Susan Levine, Rialto Unified’s associate superintendent for educational services, said the assignment was developed locally by a small group of teachers and did not come from any textbook or off-the-shelf curriculum.

When teachers meet over the summer to work on the first writing prompts for the 2014-15 school year, there will be more oversight, she said.

“We’ll put a new process in place that will have more levels of review on future topics and we’ll ensure that there’s no topic that could be construed as insensitive or could be left open for massive misinterpretation,” Levine said.

The Holocaust assignment was developed in December by a group of eighth-grade teachers working on the third-quarter English Language Arts argumentative writing/research project. It was based on the eighth-grade “Diary of Anne Frank” unit the students would be working on.

“We have district writing prompts,” Levine said. “The writing prompts are put out for review, for comment, to the other teachers and the principals. If any revisions need to be made, that’s done.”

The assignment was distributed to middle school sites in February where, she said, there were no issues raised.

“I didn’t get one complaint from teachers, from parents, from students,” Levine said.

Approximately 2,000 eighth-graders completed the assignment.

The district did get complaints from other quarters, though. News of the assignment quickly spread after it was first reported on Sunday. Broadcast media jumped on the story immediately, along with wire services and other media. By Monday, the district offices were besieged by news vans, and telephones rang off the hook with calls from around the country, including a death threat leveled against two employees. Local politicians and the Los Angeles City Council likewise voiced their disapproval of the assignment.

“We saw it as a sensitive topic, but we thought the students were mature enough to determine that the Holocaust did exist,” she said. “We understand that controversial topics are not the subjects to address this (critical thinking) standard and it will not happen again.”

The in-depth examination of issues and emphasis on critical thinking is part of newly adopted Common Core state standards, but Levine said the Holocaust assignment was not specifically tied to those standards.

“I don’t see this as a Common Core issue in any way,” she said. “The Common Core is a set of standards, and we pick the materials we use to teach the Common Core (skills).”

She also stressed that neither she nor anyone she works with doubts the reality of the Holocaust. Levine’s maternal grandmother’s family was killed by the Nazis in Czechoslovakia prior to her grandmother emigrating to the United States, she said.

“No one in this district believes the Holocaust did not exist,” she said.

And that apparently includes the district’s eighth-graders: District officials have been looking over the written responses since Monday.

“We have not found one yet that said the Holocaust did not exist,” Levine said.

The Rialto Unified School Board — four out of five of whom could not be reached for comment for this story, starting Thursday night — will hold an emergency meeting on today to discuss the Holocaust assignment, along with, behind closed doors, anticipated litigation and threats to public services or facilities.

The meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. at district headquarters at 182 East Walnut Avenue in Rialto.

Beau Yarbrough wrote his first newspaper article taking on an authority figure (his middle school principal) when he was in 7th grade. He’s been a professional journalist since 1992, working in Virginia, Egypt and California. In that time, he’s covered community news, features, politics, local government, education, the comic book industry and more. He’s covered the war in Bosnia, interviewed presidential candidates, written theatrical reviews, attended a seance, ridden in a blimp and interviewed both Batman and Wonder Woman (Adam West and Lynda Carter). He also cooks a mean pot of chili.

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